It’s not often a chap gets to shake a hand that has personally accounted for 31 Japs in the space of one battle. But such was your correspondent’s privilege outside the Royal Courts of Justice this week at the launch of a splendidly righteous case demanding fair and just citizenship rights for Gurkha veterans.
A tearful Joanna Lumley was there — her father fought with the Chindits as a major in the 6th Gurkha Rifles — as was a typically well-mannered crowd of perhaps 300 ex-Gurkhas and their families. But the stars of the show were the two frail, elderly men sitting impassively in wheelchairs, with their un-mistakable crimson-ribboned bronze crosses stuck proudly on their chests. There are currently only ten living recipients of the Victoria Cross and three, it almost goes without saying, are Gurkhas.
Tulbahadur Pun (now 86) won his in June 1944 at the turning-point of the Burma campaign, when almost all his section had been wiped out by Japanese machine guns at the Mogaung railway bridge. Firing his Bren from the hip he continued to advance alone under shattering fire till he reached the enemy bunker, polishing off three of the occupants with his kukri (the Gurkhas’ legendary curved 18-inch fighting knife) and causing five more to flee in understandable terror.
The VC of Lachhiman Gurung (now 91)must rank among the most implausible ever. In May 1945 his forward post at Taungdaw, Burma, was attacked by 200 of the enemy. With his two comrades lying wounded at his feet, Gurung — all 4ft 6in of him — continued to hold his position single-handed for four hours. Quite literally single-handed, for his right hand — and his right eye — had been blown away by a grenade.
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